I don't consider myself a computer god or anything, but how is it possible that you folks have all these problems with Win2k?? I have now run 2k and XP on upwards of 100+ machines. Different in every respect (P2-400 up to XP 1700+) and NEVER had this sort of problem. Don't get me wrong, there were issues that needed to be ironed out along the way, but I've found that once a machine is stable under 2k/XP, it runs flawlessly.
Truth be told, I've had MUCH more trouble under Linux in terms of time from start to stability. Is this a "user" issue??
Because as we know, we should look to the closed source community (Microsoft, what?) for all our security needs. At least open source doesn't try to deal with security problems by denying they exist.
It didn't even take 10 minutes... Can someone tell me what PGP being open/closed source has to do with Microsoft? Last I checked NAI was the vendor of the product, and it was CLOSED source. From what I've heard this is an excellent product, and it's a shame to loose, no matter what plaform you run. Just because something is Open Source doesn't mean it's better. Do you think that the majority of the best coders do work for free, or for profit? And despite what you may think, some of the most talented people in this industry work at Microsoft (and NAI for that matter)... As for public vs. non-public disclosure of security issues, I'm sure that MS has plenty of reasons for NOT releasing their vulnerabilities. They have to take things into consideration that the Open Source community does not. With all the MS haters out there, as SOON as a vulnerability is announced, there are tens of thousands of script kiddies in their basement trying to wreak havoc on the Internet. Should there be vulnerabilities? No, but it's a fact of ANY software development. It doesn't mean there aren't a thousand people at MS slaving away trying to make their products better. Have a little more respect and appreciation for the scale of the systems we are even able to create nowadays. Damn zealots.
So, it's OK with you if I ship you some poorly-performing code, and use the development costs saved to adopt a 3rd-world child? You can't really compare your business' needs for functional software at a good price against somebody's life, can you? I bet you also contribute all of your tax refund to the various charities that are options on your state's income tax form too, right - after all, you can't compare "you having money" with "somebody's life", can you? Because that's the argument that you're making here.
This is not the point that I am making at all. The problem I have is that people constantly bash Microsoft and even BG personally, and they don't have a great reason. Let me start by saying that their reason is that MS has control. Nobody likes it when someone else has control. I admit they got that control by using heavy-handed tactics, but unfortunately, that's business. Business is NOT fair. It's about strategy, luck, and timing. I for one am very frightened by this anti-trust trial and the lasting impact it will have. With AT&T, it was different. They controlled EVERY aspect of the wires running into every U.S. home. That is a far cry from MS dominating on the desktop. Last time I checked, very few critical pieces of software ran on Windows. How would you feel if the government told Adobe that they had to ship a stripped down version of Photoshop because no other vendor could compete in that market? Sure, there's free and open source alternatives to Photoshop, but where it matters (in business) it is still the tool of choice. This is my problem. Legal precedents can & will be applied to just about ANY circumstance that remotely resembles it, and I feel a lot of these anti-MS zealots have failed to see the "Big Picture."
Further, to say the all of their products are "poorly performing code" is ridiculous. It's not as if they've sold me a new car that doesn't start. And it's not as though they haven't made their products significantly better over the years. Ever tried to get online using Windows 3.1? Ever tried to setup a business LAN using WFW3.11? Have you been back to experience the "bland" UI of Win95? Try sitting down in front of XP and tell me it's not a better, more evolved piece of software. Now go back before the AT&T breakup and tell me that AT&T tried to improve its product... You can't, because they were stagnant. We've had more developments in the 20 years since the breakup than we had in the 60 years before it (caller id, call waiting, 911, 3-way calling, etc.). The purpose of breaking up a monopoly is to spur competition and make the consumer better off. Is my grandmother going to be better off buying a computer with Windows Lite or with Linux? You must be a fool to think she would be. How about to 80% of computer users out there who are barely literate enough to use Windows? How about all of the Quickbooks users out there who rely on the functionality provided by IE? Are they going to be better off when their software that they do their bookeeping with will not run? Is Dell or Gateway going to be better off giving Linux away for free? With ever decreasing margins on hardware, every bit you reduce their profit, the more trouble they're going to be in.
I run Microsoft software. Why? Because it helps me get MY work done faster. Without it, I would not be nearly as productive. The same can be said about my clients. They barely have the expertise to scan a picture. Would I be a responsible service provider if I recommended Linux on the desktop? Further, if the DOJ had gotten its way, Internet Explorer would not be nearly as prevalent as it is. You may or may not think this is a good thing, but I certainly do. Internet usage has skyrocketed, and contrary to most techno-geek's opinions, the average everyday Joe was not downloading Netscape and figuring out how to connect to the Internet before IE. I know, I work with several businesses who's first experience with the net was AOL (ack!), and I must say that IE (and Outlook Express) for all of their evils have really put decent technology within reach of the average person.
The real problem is that there is no viable alternative to Windows. Not now, and not for the forseeable future. But that doesn't make MS a monopoly. Screaming that they are, and promoting Open Source software does not make it so. This is a market driven by demand. If someone makes a product that is clearly superior, the marketplace will adopt it. But companies have run Windows for over ten years now. They have a tremendous amount of training, software and systems based around the platform. They are not just going to switch overnight. People on the other hand use what they know, and most folks that I come in contact with know Windows because they use it at work.
Unfortunately, Linux, in its current incarnation (puts on flame retardant goggles) will NEVER be a viable desktop system. The average everyday user doesn't want or need the freedom provided by the environment, and the sheer enormity of the knowledge required to run it will always be its drawback. If Linus was smart he'd have written an entirely new operating system for the masses. But instead he made a free UNIX clone. I know it's NOT Unix, but it's pretty darn close, and all the fancy window managers (that even attempt to emulate the WinUI for heaven's sake) will not hide its underpinnings. We're still working with 20 year old technology.
A lot of people complain about the stability of Windows, but I scoff. Was 95/98/ME unstable? Yes, but more because of a desire to maintain backwards compatibility (you know, because customers PAY for an upgrade, they demand that they don't have to pay for upgrades to EVERYTHING just to go to a new OS). Think what would have happened to MS's marketshare if each future incarnation of Windows was incompatible with the last. It would have been a disaster not only for MS, but for users, and for vendors who write for the Windows plaform (nearly every one). Now we have the NT/2000 codebase (VMS), and I routinely run my system for months at a time without a problem. I'm also smart enough to keep my system up to date, and to ensure I always have the latest stable drivers for all of my hardware. I also don't use cheap hardware, which in my experience, is the cause of 90% of Windows instability. The same can be said for Linux. It wasn't until I installed RedHat 7.2 that the install was even close to being on par with ANY windows system (even the floppy installs of Win95!).
I guess I have now taken a very long time to respond to a very simple point: the computer industry is still relatively new. If the government had made similar restrictions to other industries, they may not be where they are today (i.e. Henry Ford with the automobile), and that is what worries me. MS has a lot of cash, so they can "move & shake" quite a bit, but this desktop OS monopoly WILL NOT last forever, but the decisions made during this trial WILL. I would rather let the market and consumers decide with their dollar and their voice rather than the DOJ deciding for me.
The way to beat MS is as their own game, not by pushing the gov't to break them up or impose other draconian regulations that they could not possibly forsee the actual ramifications of.
Yes, my original post was about charity, and so was the response to an extent. But your response was based upon a premise that is not entirely MS's doing. And until I can use Linux (in my work, not for fun, or my hobby), it will never be able to compete, no matter how much you berate or bad-mouth MS software, or its founder. And to belittle the man's contributions to charity by saying he "stole" that money, and therefore took it from others who would have given it to charity (which is about the damn stupidest thing I've read today) is false. And contrary to your belief, it's also highly unlikely that ANY of the $139 I spent on Windows XP Pro (or any other software or hardware product for that matter) would have gone to charity.
Doesn't matter. If Al Capone gave money to a prostitute, would you admire his generosity?
If Gates would stop defrauding people, he would do a lot more good than giving his ill-gotten gains to some schools to teach kids to use his products.
He's scum. The day Microsoft actually tries to market a product based on its merits, I'll change my mind.
This has to be the most biased post I have ever read. The fact that it is anonymous should have caused me to step over it, but I just had to write back.
Before you jump to conclusions about something which you obviously know little about, just take a look at what their foundation gave in the year 2000 alone (these are actual paid statistics, not merely grants awarded):
1) Pacific Northwest $40.3M
2) Global Health $554.5M ($253.8M to Vaccine Preventable Diseases)
3) Conditions Associated with Poverty $171.8M
4) Reproductive and Child Health $128.9M
5) Special Projects $249.9M
6) Education $74.6M
7) Libraries and Public Access to Information $75.6M
That's still nearly $1.3 BILLION dollars that were given away, and contrary to your belief, it wasn't all software, or teaching children to use their crappy software.
Some people are very grateful for what they receive, and I think it's great that the world's wealthiest man is charitable.
I somehow don't think the people that received these funds would have benefitted more if Outlook or MS-Word was a better product, or if Microsoft was more competitive. How you can even compare the importance of people's health and education to the quality of a software product is beyond me. And to compare Al Capone giving money to a prostitute to BG giving money to charity just preposterous.
I saw this display, and now after reading this post I must ask, "What does it matter?" It's not as if MS is advertising in your local city hall or courthouse. It's the post office... A branch of the government that isn't responsible for anything remotely important (yes, I realize mail delivery is important, but it's not going to make or break my life/freedom either way).
Not only that, but it's a branch of the government that's entirely self-sufficient. Not one red cent comes from taxpayers. So again I ask, what does it matter?
That's all I could think as I read this article. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I read this:
"TVs with the OS installed will be much smaller as they will not need a tuner, the sources said."
I don't know about you, but I don't want my television to be smaller. I don't care if the components inside can fit on the head of a pin. Give me a 60" HDTV and I'll be a happy man.
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I don't consider myself a computer god or anything, but how is it possible that you folks have all these problems with Win2k?? I have now run 2k and XP on upwards of 100+ machines. Different in every respect (P2-400 up to XP 1700+) and NEVER had this sort of problem. Don't get me wrong, there were issues that needed to be ironed out along the way, but I've found that once a machine is stable under 2k/XP, it runs flawlessly.
Truth be told, I've had MUCH more trouble under Linux in terms of time from start to stability. Is this a "user" issue??
Because as we know, we should look to the closed source community (Microsoft, what?) for all our security needs. At least open source doesn't try to deal with security problems by denying they exist.
It didn't even take 10 minutes... Can someone tell me what PGP being open/closed source has to do with Microsoft? Last I checked NAI was the vendor of the product, and it was CLOSED source. From what I've heard this is an excellent product, and it's a shame to loose, no matter what plaform you run. Just because something is Open Source doesn't mean it's better. Do you think that the majority of the best coders do work for free, or for profit? And despite what you may think, some of the most talented people in this industry work at Microsoft (and NAI for that matter)... As for public vs. non-public disclosure of security issues, I'm sure that MS has plenty of reasons for NOT releasing their vulnerabilities. They have to take things into consideration that the Open Source community does not. With all the MS haters out there, as SOON as a vulnerability is announced, there are tens of thousands of script kiddies in their basement trying to wreak havoc on the Internet. Should there be vulnerabilities? No, but it's a fact of ANY software development. It doesn't mean there aren't a thousand people at MS slaving away trying to make their products better. Have a little more respect and appreciation for the scale of the systems we are even able to create nowadays. Damn zealots.
So, it's OK with you if I ship you some poorly-performing code, and use the development costs saved to adopt a 3rd-world child? You can't really compare your business' needs for functional software at a good price against somebody's life, can you? I bet you also contribute all of your tax refund to the various charities that are options on your state's income tax form too, right - after all, you can't compare "you having money" with "somebody's life", can you? Because that's the argument that you're making here.
This is not the point that I am making at all. The problem I have is that people constantly bash Microsoft and even BG personally, and they don't have a great reason. Let me start by saying that their reason is that MS has control. Nobody likes it when someone else has control. I admit they got that control by using heavy-handed tactics, but unfortunately, that's business. Business is NOT fair. It's about strategy, luck, and timing. I for one am very frightened by this anti-trust trial and the lasting impact it will have. With AT&T, it was different. They controlled EVERY aspect of the wires running into every U.S. home. That is a far cry from MS dominating on the desktop. Last time I checked, very few critical pieces of software ran on Windows. How would you feel if the government told Adobe that they had to ship a stripped down version of Photoshop because no other vendor could compete in that market? Sure, there's free and open source alternatives to Photoshop, but where it matters (in business) it is still the tool of choice. This is my problem. Legal precedents can & will be applied to just about ANY circumstance that remotely resembles it, and I feel a lot of these anti-MS zealots have failed to see the "Big Picture."
Further, to say the all of their products are "poorly performing code" is ridiculous. It's not as if they've sold me a new car that doesn't start. And it's not as though they haven't made their products significantly better over the years. Ever tried to get online using Windows 3.1? Ever tried to setup a business LAN using WFW3.11? Have you been back to experience the "bland" UI of Win95? Try sitting down in front of XP and tell me it's not a better, more evolved piece of software. Now go back before the AT&T breakup and tell me that AT&T tried to improve its product... You can't, because they were stagnant. We've had more developments in the 20 years since the breakup than we had in the 60 years before it (caller id, call waiting, 911, 3-way calling, etc.). The purpose of breaking up a monopoly is to spur competition and make the consumer better off. Is my grandmother going to be better off buying a computer with Windows Lite or with Linux? You must be a fool to think she would be. How about to 80% of computer users out there who are barely literate enough to use Windows? How about all of the Quickbooks users out there who rely on the functionality provided by IE? Are they going to be better off when their software that they do their bookeeping with will not run? Is Dell or Gateway going to be better off giving Linux away for free? With ever decreasing margins on hardware, every bit you reduce their profit, the more trouble they're going to be in.
I run Microsoft software. Why? Because it helps me get MY work done faster. Without it, I would not be nearly as productive. The same can be said about my clients. They barely have the expertise to scan a picture. Would I be a responsible service provider if I recommended Linux on the desktop? Further, if the DOJ had gotten its way, Internet Explorer would not be nearly as prevalent as it is. You may or may not think this is a good thing, but I certainly do. Internet usage has skyrocketed, and contrary to most techno-geek's opinions, the average everyday Joe was not downloading Netscape and figuring out how to connect to the Internet before IE. I know, I work with several businesses who's first experience with the net was AOL (ack!), and I must say that IE (and Outlook Express) for all of their evils have really put decent technology within reach of the average person.
The real problem is that there is no viable alternative to Windows. Not now, and not for the forseeable future. But that doesn't make MS a monopoly. Screaming that they are, and promoting Open Source software does not make it so. This is a market driven by demand. If someone makes a product that is clearly superior, the marketplace will adopt it. But companies have run Windows for over ten years now. They have a tremendous amount of training, software and systems based around the platform. They are not just going to switch overnight. People on the other hand use what they know, and most folks that I come in contact with know Windows because they use it at work.
Unfortunately, Linux, in its current incarnation (puts on flame retardant goggles) will NEVER be a viable desktop system. The average everyday user doesn't want or need the freedom provided by the environment, and the sheer enormity of the knowledge required to run it will always be its drawback. If Linus was smart he'd have written an entirely new operating system for the masses. But instead he made a free UNIX clone. I know it's NOT Unix, but it's pretty darn close, and all the fancy window managers (that even attempt to emulate the WinUI for heaven's sake) will not hide its underpinnings. We're still working with 20 year old technology.
A lot of people complain about the stability of Windows, but I scoff. Was 95/98/ME unstable? Yes, but more because of a desire to maintain backwards compatibility (you know, because customers PAY for an upgrade, they demand that they don't have to pay for upgrades to EVERYTHING just to go to a new OS). Think what would have happened to MS's marketshare if each future incarnation of Windows was incompatible with the last. It would have been a disaster not only for MS, but for users, and for vendors who write for the Windows plaform (nearly every one). Now we have the NT/2000 codebase (VMS), and I routinely run my system for months at a time without a problem. I'm also smart enough to keep my system up to date, and to ensure I always have the latest stable drivers for all of my hardware. I also don't use cheap hardware, which in my experience, is the cause of 90% of Windows instability. The same can be said for Linux. It wasn't until I installed RedHat 7.2 that the install was even close to being on par with ANY windows system (even the floppy installs of Win95!).
I guess I have now taken a very long time to respond to a very simple point: the computer industry is still relatively new. If the government had made similar restrictions to other industries, they may not be where they are today (i.e. Henry Ford with the automobile), and that is what worries me. MS has a lot of cash, so they can "move & shake" quite a bit, but this desktop OS monopoly WILL NOT last forever, but the decisions made during this trial WILL. I would rather let the market and consumers decide with their dollar and their voice rather than the DOJ deciding for me.
The way to beat MS is as their own game, not by pushing the gov't to break them up or impose other draconian regulations that they could not possibly forsee the actual ramifications of.
Yes, my original post was about charity, and so was the response to an extent. But your response was based upon a premise that is not entirely MS's doing. And until I can use Linux (in my work, not for fun, or my hobby), it will never be able to compete, no matter how much you berate or bad-mouth MS software, or its founder. And to belittle the man's contributions to charity by saying he "stole" that money, and therefore took it from others who would have given it to charity (which is about the damn stupidest thing I've read today) is false. And contrary to your belief, it's also highly unlikely that ANY of the $139 I spent on Windows XP Pro (or any other software or hardware product for that matter) would have gone to charity.
So THERE!
Doesn't matter. If Al Capone gave money to a prostitute, would you admire his generosity?
If Gates would stop defrauding people, he would do a lot more good than giving his ill-gotten gains to some schools to teach kids to use his products.
He's scum. The day Microsoft actually tries to market a product based on its merits, I'll change my mind.
This has to be the most biased post I have ever read. The fact that it is anonymous should have caused me to step over it, but I just had to write back.
Before you jump to conclusions about something which you obviously know little about, just take a look at what their foundation gave in the year 2000 alone (these are actual paid statistics, not merely grants awarded):
1) Pacific Northwest $40.3M
2) Global Health $554.5M ($253.8M to Vaccine Preventable Diseases)
3) Conditions Associated with Poverty $171.8M
4) Reproductive and Child Health $128.9M
5) Special Projects $249.9M
6) Education $74.6M
7) Libraries and Public Access to Information $75.6M
That's still nearly $1.3 BILLION dollars that were given away, and contrary to your belief, it wasn't all software, or teaching children to use their crappy software.
Some people are very grateful for what they receive, and I think it's great that the world's wealthiest man is charitable.
I somehow don't think the people that received these funds would have benefitted more if Outlook or MS-Word was a better product, or if Microsoft was more competitive. How you can even compare the importance of people's health and education to the quality of a software product is beyond me. And to compare Al Capone giving money to a prostitute to BG giving money to charity just preposterous.
I saw this display, and now after reading this post I must ask, "What does it matter?" It's not as if MS is advertising in your local city hall or courthouse. It's the post office... A branch of the government that isn't responsible for anything remotely important (yes, I realize mail delivery is important, but it's not going to make or break my life/freedom either way).
Not only that, but it's a branch of the government that's entirely self-sufficient. Not one red cent comes from taxpayers. So again I ask, what does it matter?
"This is utter crap...."
That's all I could think as I read this article. And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I read this:
"TVs with the OS installed will be much smaller as they will not need a tuner, the sources said."
I don't know about you, but I don't want my television to be smaller. I don't care if the components inside can fit on the head of a pin. Give me a 60" HDTV and I'll be a happy man.